girl, "with a liveliness that shows she is conscious, but not
affected, of her perfections." Coke was the Sir Plume of Pope's Rape of
the Lock.

17 The committee of management of the Royal household.

18 Francesca Margherita de l'Epine, the famous singer, and principal
rival of Mrs. Tofts, came to England in 1692, and constantly sang in
opera until her retirement in 1718, when she married Dr. Pepusch. She
died in 1746. Her sister, Maria Gallia, also a singer, did not attain
the same popularity.

19 Charles Scarborow and Sir William Foster were the Clerks of the Board
of Green Cloth.

20 See Letter 27, note 16 on Thomas Coke.

21 The Earl of Sunderland's second wife, Lady Anne Churchill, who died
in 1716, aged twenty-eight. She was the favourite daughter of the Duke
of Marlborough, and was called "the little Whig." Verses were written in
honour of her beauty and talent by Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, Dr.
Watts and others, and her portrait was painted by Lely and Kneller.

22 Mary, daughter of Sir William Forester, of Dothill, Shropshire.
In 1700, at the age of thirteen, she had been secretly married to her
cousin, George Downing, a lad of fifteen. Three years later, Downing,
on his return from abroad, refused to acknowledge his wife, and in 1715
both parties petitioned the House of Lords for leave to bring in a
Bill declaring the marriage to be void; but leave was refused (Lords'
Journals, xx. 41, 45). Downing had become Sir George Downing, Bart., in
1711, and had been elected M.P. for Dunwich; he died without issue in
1749, and was the founder of Downing College, Cambridge.

23 In a discussion upon what would be the result if beards became the
fashion, Budgell (Spectator, No. 331) says, "Besides, we are not certain
that the ladies would not come into the mode, when they take the air
on horseback. They already appear in hats and feathers, coats and
periwigs."

LETTER 28.

1 Horse-racing was much encouraged by Charles II., who, as Strutt tells
us, appointed races to be made in Datchet Mead, when he was residing
at Windsor. By Queen Anne's time horse-racing was becoming a regular
institution: see Spectator, No. 173.

2 John Montagu, second Duke of Montagu, married Lady Mary Churchill,
youngest daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.

3 Of Clogher.

4 John Adams, Prebendary of Canterbury and Canon of Windsor. He was made
Provost of King's College, Cambridge, in 1712, and died in 1720.

5 The Hon. a